I. In the first place, the wealth of Nikias was much more honestly and
creditably obtained than that of Crassus. Generally speaking, one
cannot approve of men who make their money from mines, which are as a
rule worked by criminals, or savages, labouring in chains in unhealthy
subterranean dungeons; but yet this method of amassing a fortune seems
much the more honourable, when compared with Crassus's purchase of
confiscated lands and his habit of bidding for houses that were on
fire. Crassus too used to practise these openly, like a trade: while
he was also accused of taking bribes for his speeches in the Senate,
of defrauding the allies of Rome, of currying favour with great ladies
and assisting them to shield offenders from justice. Nothing of this
sort was ever laid to the charge of Nikias, who, however, was
ridiculed for giving money to common informers because he feared their
tongues. Yet this action of his, though it would have been a disgrace
to Perikles, or Aristeides, was a necessity for Nikias, who was
naturally of a timid disposition. Thus Lykurgus the orator excused
himself when accused of having bought off some informers who
threatened him. "I am glad," said he, "that after so long a public
life as mine I should have been at last convicted of giving bribes
rather than of receiving them."
The expenditure of Nikias was all calculated to increase his
popularity in the state, being devoted to offerings to the gods,
gymnastic contests and public dramatic performances. But all the money
he spent that way, and all that he possessed was but a small part of
what Crassus bestowed upon a public feast at Rome for some tens of
thousands of guests, whom he even maintained at his own cost for some
time after. So true it is that wickedness and vice argue a want of
due balance and proportion in a man's mind, which leads him to acquire
wealth dishonestly, and then to squander it uselessly.
II. So much for their riches. Now in their political life, Nikias
never did anything bold, daring or unjust, for he was outwitted by
Alkibiades, and always stood in fear of the popular assembly. Crassus,
on the other hand, is accused of great inconsistency, in lightly
changing from one party to another, and he himself never denied that
he once obtained the consulship by hiring men to assassinate Cato and
Domitius. And in the assembly held for the dividing for the provinces,
many were wounded and four men slain in the Forum, while Crassus
himself (which I have forgotten to mention in his Life) struck one
Lucius Annalius, a speaker on the other side, so violent a blow with
his fist that his face was covered with blood. But though Crassus was
overbearing and tyrannical in his public life, yet we cannot deny that
the shrinking timidity and cowardice of Nikias deserve equally severe
censure; and it must be remembered that when Crassus was carrying
matters with so high a hand, it was no Kleon or Hyperbolus that he had
for an antagonist, but the great Julius Cæsar himself, and Pompeius
who had triumphed three several times, and that he gave way to neither
of them, but became their equal in power, and even excelled Pompeius
in dignity by obtaining the office of censor. A great politician
should not try to avoid unpopularity, but to gain such power and
reputation as will enable him to rise above it.
Yet if it were true that Nikias preferred quiet and security to
anything else, and that he stood in fear of Alkibiades in the
assembly, of the Spartans at Pylus, and of Perdikkas in Thrace, he had
every opportunity to repose himself in Athens and to "weave the
garland of a peaceful life," as some philosopher calls it. He had
indeed a true and divine love of peace, and his attempt to bring the
Peloponnesian war to an end, was an act of real Hellenic patriotism.
In this respect Crassus cannot be compared with Nikias, not though he
had carried the frontier of the Roman empire as far as the Caspian and
the Indian seas.
III. Yet a statesman, in a country which appreciates his merits,
ought not when at the height of his power to make way for worthless
men, and place in office those who have no claim to it, as Nikias did
when he laid down his own office of commander-in-chief and gave it to
Kleon, a man who possessed no qualification whatever for the post
except his brazen effrontery. Neither can I praise Crassus for having
so rashly and hurriedly brought the war with Spartacus to a crisis,
although he was actuated by an honourable ambition in fearing that
Pompeius would arrive and take from him the glory of having completed
the war, as Mummius took from Marcellus the glory of winning Corinth.
But on the other hand the conduct of Nikias was altogether monstrous
and inexcusable. He did not give up his honourable post to his enemy
at a time when there was hope of success and little peril. He saw that
great danger was likely to be incurred by the general in command at
Pylus, and yet he was content to place himself in safety, and let the
state run the risk of ruin, by entrusting an incompetent person with
the sole management of affairs. Yet Themistokles, rather than allow an
ignorant commander to mismanage the war against Persia, bribed him to
lay down his office. So also Cato at a most dangerous crisis became a
candidate for the office of tribune of the people in order to serve
his country. But Nikias, reserving himself to play the general at the
expense of the village of Minoa, the island of Kythera, and the
miserable inhabitants of Melos,[100] when it came to fighting the
Lacedæmonians eagerly stripped off his general's cloak, and entrusted
to an inexperienced and reckless man like Kleon, the conduct of an
enterprise involving the safety of a large Athenian fleet and army,
showing himself no less neglectful of his own honour than he was of
the interests of his country. After this he was forced against his
will into the war with Syracuse, in which he seems to have imagined
that his army would capture the city by remaining before it doing
nothing, and not by vigorous attacks. No doubt it is a great testimony
to the esteem in which he was held by his countrymen, that he was
always opposed to war and unwilling to act as general, and was
nevertheless always forced by them to undertake that office: whereas
Crassus, who always wished for an independent command, never obtained
one except in the servile war, and then only because all the other
generals, Pompeius, Metellus, and Lucullus, were absent. Yet at that
time Crassus was at the height of his power and reputation: but his
friends seem to have thought him, as the comic poet has it,
"Most excellent, save in the battle-field."
And in his case also, the Romans gained no advantage from his
ambitious desire of command. The Athenians sent Nikias to Sicily
against his will, and Crassus led the Romans to Parthia against their
will. Nikias suffered by the actions of the Athenians, while Rome
suffered by the actions of Crassus.
IV. However, in their last moments we incline rather to praise Nikias
than to blame Crassus. Nikias, a skilful and experienced commander,
did not share the rash hopes of his countrymen, but never thought that
Sicily could be conquered, and dissuaded them from making the attempt.
Crassus, on the other hand, urged the Romans to undertake the war with
Parthia, representing the conquest of that country as an easy
operation, which he nevertheless failed to effect. His ambition was
vast. Cæsar had conquered the Gauls, Germans, Britons, and all the
west of Europe, and Crassus wished in his turn to march eastward as
far as the Indian Ocean, and to conquer all those regions of Asia
which Pompeius and Lucullus, two great men and actuated by a like
desire for conquest, had previously aspired to subdue. Yet they also
met with a like opposition. When Pompeius was given an unlimited
command in the East, the appointment was opposed by the Senate, and
when Cæsar routed thirty thousand Germans, Cato proposed that he
should be delivered up to the vanquished, and that thus the anger of
the gods should be turned away from the city upon the author of so
great a crime as he had committed by breaking his word. Yet the Romans
slighted Cato's proposals and held a solemn thanksgiving for fifteen
days to show their joy at the news. How many days then must we imagine
they would have spent in rejoicing if Crassus had sent despatches
announcing the capture of Babylon, and then had reduced Media, Persia,
Hyrkania, Susa, and Bactria to the condition of Roman provinces. "If a
man must do wrong," as Euripides says of those who cannot live in
peace, and be contented when they are well off, they should do it on a
grand scale like this, not capture contemptible places like Skandeia
or Mende, or chase the people of Ægina, like birds who have been
turned out of their nests. If we are to do an injustice, let us not do
it in a miserable pettifogging way, but imitate such great examples as
Crassus and Alexander the Great. Those who praise the one of these
great men, and blame the other, do so only because they are unable to
see any other distinction between them except that the one failed and
the other succeeded.
V. When acting as general, Nikias did many great exploits, for he was
many times victorious, all but took Syracuse, and ought not justly to
bear the blame of the whole Sicilian disaster, because of his disease,
and the ill will which some bore him at Athens. Crassus on the other
hand committed so many mistakes as to put it out of the power of
fortune to aid him, so that one wonders not so much that his folly was
overcome by the Parthians as that it could overcome the good fortune
of the Romans. Now as the one never disregarded religious observances
and omens, the other despised them all, and yet both alike perished,
it is hard to say what inference we ought to draw, as to which acted
most wisely, yet we must incline rather to the side of him who
followed the established rule in such matters rather than that of him
who insolently discarded all such observances. In his death Crassus is
more to be commended, because he yielded himself against his will in
consequence of the entreaties of his friends, and was most
treacherously deceived by the enemy, while Nikias delivered himself up
to his enemies through a base and cowardly desire to save his life,
and thus made his end more infamous.